Regular readers of John Hood‘s column already have learned about Eric Burns’ excellent study of early American journalism: Infamous Scribblers (Public Affairs, 2006).
Among its many humorous and fascinating stories is a brief piece of wisdom from William Cobbett, who called himself Peter Porcupine and shared his views in Porcupine’s Gazette.
Cobbett rejects the myth of an unbiased media:
My politics, such as they are, are known to every one; and few, I believe, doubt of their continuing the same.
Professions of impartiality I shall make none. They are always useless, and are besides perfect nonsense, when used by a newsmonger: for, he that does not relate news as he finds it, is something worse than partial; and as to other articles that help to compose a paper, he that does not exercise his own judgment, either in admitting or rejecting what it sent him, is a poor passive tool, and not an editor.
In other words, a reporter/editor who promises impartiality either deludes himself (because he fails to recognize the impact of his own biases on what he writes and reports) or lacks the sense to discriminate between items worth reporting and those unworthy of publication.
